Airtel Collaborates with Ericsson to Develop 5G

India’s largest telecom operator Airtel has partnered with Swedish company Ericsson to bring the power of 5G in the near future. In a statement given to Reuters India, Ericsson’s Nunzio Mirtillo, Senior Vice President for South East Asia said that the company has signed contracts with 36 operators globally and Airtel being the most recent one.

Ericsson, which already has ongoing deals with Airtel with regards to 4G and managed services will be working in collaboration with the telecom operator to devise a strategic roadmap for the development of the new technology. It is also worth mentioning that earlier this year, Airtel was in similar talks with Nokia to bring 5G to its customers.

The Swedish firm demonstrated the power of 5G at a test bed and using a 5G NR Radio Receiver. The company aims to build a powerful 5G network well before the technology rolls out for mass use, which is expected to happen by 2020.

As per Ericsson’s estimates, the network upgrade should bring in up to Rs. 1,77,489 crores in the form of revenue for telecom operator by the time 5G goes mainstream. The upcoming technology promises blazing fast speeds. Qualcomm which showcased their X50 5G modem earlier in October claimed to strike an average download speed of up to 1GBps.

The upcoming telecom is expected to benefit not only average consumers but also other mass consumers of bandwidth like larger firms and public sector services which currently rely on broadband. 5G will surpass broadband in terms of speed and portability.

What are your views on 5G? Would you be looking to shell out a few more bucks than you already are with your current 4G data in lieu of a huge bump in download speed? Do let us know in the comments section below.